Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​To the boy-lover he said that neither the teachers, who constantly spend their time among young boys, have sense, nor do the boys themselves. He also used to assert that the speeches of correct and polished speakers are like Alexandrian silver coinage; pleasing to the eye and well-circumscribed just like the coin, but none the better on that account. Those of the opposite kind, however, he compared to the Attic tetradrachms, struck at random and uncouthly, which nevertheless often outweigh the elegantly written expressions. When his pupil Ariston was discoursing at length without talent, and on some points rashly and insolently, Zeno said: "It is impossible, unless your father begot you when he was drunk." Whence, being himself a man of few words, he used to dub him 'the babbler.'

​To the glutton who left nothing for his table-companions, when a large fish was once served, Zeno took it and made as if to devour it all. When the man stared at him, Zeno said: "What then do you think your table-companions suffer every day, if you cannot endure my gluttony for a single day?" When a youth asked an over-curious question beyond his years, Zeno led him to a mirror and bade him look into it; then he asked whether such inquiries seemed to him to befit such a face. When someone remarked that for the most part Antisthenes did not please him, Zeno cited an anecdote of Sophocles and asked if he thought Antisthenes had any good points as well; and when the man said he did not know, Zeno said: "Are you not ashamed then, if something bad was spoken, to pick that out and remember it, but if something good, not even to attempt to retain it?"

​When someone said that the little arguments of the philosophers seemed small to him, Zeno said: "You speak the truth; yet their syllables too ought to be short, if possible." When someone told him concerning Polemo that, having proposed one topic, he spoke on another, Zeno grew gloomy and said: "For how much then would you have cherished what was given to you?" He said that one who speaks with vigor should, like the actors, have great voice and power, but not stretch the mouth wide open; which is what those do who chatter much, but without power. He also said that room should not be left after well-spoken words as if for good craftsmen's work to be gazed at, but on the contrary the listener should be so engrossed in what is being said as not to take time for applause.

​When a young man was chattering much, he said: "Your ears have run down into your tongue." To the handsome youth who said that the wise man does not seem to him likely to fall in love, Zeno said: "Nothing will be more wretched than you handsome ones." He also said that most philosophers are unwise in most important matters, and ignorant in small and accidental things. And he would cite the saying of Caphisias, who, when one of his pupils attempted to blow loudly on the flute, struck him and said that good does not reside in great, but great in good. When a youth was discoursing somewhat boldly, Zeno said: "I would not say, young man, what comes into my mind."

​When a certain Rhodian who was handsome and rich, but otherwise of no account, pressed his company upon him, Zeno, unwilling to tolerate him, first seated him on the dusty part of the benches so that he would dirty his cloak, and then in the place of the beggars so that he would rub against their rags; and finally the youth went away. He used to say that conceit was the most unseemly of all things, and especially in the young; that one should not memorize the mere sounds and words, but occupy the mind with the disposition of the useful lesson, not taking them up as if they were some boiled dish or seasoned delicacy. He also said that the young ought to observe every propriety in gait, bearing, and attire; and he continually cited Euripides' lines on Capaneus, that though he had wealth, "Yet he was least boastful of his fortune, and had a spirit no bigger than a poor man's."